Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc.

Right now, as you read this, there are elected government officials in the United States who are spreading the word that it is a moral and righteous act to kill homosexuals as instructed in the bible.  These same people warn us of the threat of Islamofascists, of Muslim terrorists, but at the same time, their message states that Muslim nations in the Middle East that execute known homosexuals are more righteous than American Christians.  They believe that President Obama and all Americans who hold liberal views are criminals.  They also claim that the constitutional separation of church and state is a myth, but despite that claim, they are working hard to subvert it and abolish the Constitution as it exists today.  They want their religion — their particular brand of Christianity — enforced by federal law and taught in public schools using tactics that can only be described — and have been by those who’ve seen them — as thought reform and mind control.  They also believe that things like depression and addiction are not actual ailments that plague millions of people but myths created by liberals who want to weaken this country.  One of those government officials is a member of the United States Congress.  Don’t believe me?  Let me tell you a story.

In 2003, Benton High School in Benton, Wisconson, arranged an assembly program for its students in grades 7 – 12 starring a band called Junkyard Prophet, which was to perform music and deliver a message about drug abuse and abstinence.  Bradlee Dean, the group’s founder and drummer, instead used that opportunity, according to the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, to condemn “homosexuality and the teaching of evolution in the schools.”  At a subsequent assembly, Benton Principal Gary Neis apologized to the students for allowing it and told them, “They talked about influencing and brainwashing people.  Be wise to the fact that is what they were doing. They were using the same tactics.”

In 2004, Dean and his group, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc., which includes the band Junkyard Prophet, appeared at Roane County High School and did the same thing.  According to local paper the Oak Ridger, “RCHS Principal Jody McLoud apologized for any controversy or heartache the assembly generated.  In addition to homosexuality, race and obesity, the materials reportedly also included such topics as suicide, drugs and premarital sex.”  The whole thing stirred a great deal of local controversy, forcing the school district to emphasize its policy that “forbids religious statements in schools.”  But the damage was done.  According to Laura Dailey, a parent of one of the students, “They encouraged bigotry and hate-mongering toward children that may not share their religious beliefs or who are struggling to find an identity or self-esteem.”

Describing a March 2005 performance of Dean and his group at a school in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, high school junior Amy Deitcher told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “It seemed like total propaganda.  It was like a cult.  They were trying to get kids who can’t think for themselves to think like them.”  Deitcher said boys and girls were separated during the program and girls were “presented with a ‘treasure chest’ theory in which they were told that any sort of physical contact with a man before marriage would result in a woman becoming ‘leftovers’ for her husband.”  Not surprisingly, this performance resulted in the cancellation of a program Dean and company were scheduled to give to an elementary school.  One might think that Dean’s reputation would quickly spread and public school officials would stop scheduling his programs.  But that wasn’t the case.

In November of 2005, YCRBNH was paid $2,500 to perform for three school districts in Collifax, Illinois.  Afterward, an appalled principal gathered students together to apologize to them for allowing the group to appear.

That was five years ago.  They’re still at it. Civil liberties groups point to this activity as a clear constitutional violation.  But it is the responsibility of the school to check out YCRBYCH before booking them to perform.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation said, “We’ve made complaints about them in the past.  And there are similar groups out there that use assembly subterfuges to gain access to a captive audience of school children.  It is hard to believe schools don’t know what they’re getting into; all they have to do is a cursory check of the websites.  School districts often pay exorbitant honoraria as well, so it adds economic injury to constitutional insult.”

She points out that these groups, of which YCRBYCH is only one, use deceptive tactics to get into the schools, and once there, they begin to recruit.  “This is a devious strategy used also by many ‘pizza evangelists,’” Gaylor said, referring to Christian groups that use pizza parties, sports, and contests to win big prizes like cars or motorcycles to get a foot into the door of public schools and gain access to the young minds inside.

Bradlee Dean was asked directly by the Minnesota Independent if religion was a part of the program he puts on in public schools.  “Morality is, which is the fruit of religion.  Our testimony of Christ is spoken of if someone asks us ‘what changed you?’”

But to book these programs, Dean is using extremely deceptive tactics.  Is that moral?  Dean has some interesting ideas about morality, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Although they are blatantly dishonest when dealing with the schools where they want to perform, the group makes no secret of its intentions if asked and does not evade questions about it.  During an April 2009 broadcast on Christian radio station KKMS, one of the group’s members said, “We are doing assemblies here, folks, just so you understand, we do public high school assemblies.  We are speaking to kids in our schools about the Constitution, suicide prevention and our own testimony of how Christ turned our lives around in public schools so we can get the light into kids hands in public schools.”  YCRBYCH obviously rejects the United States Constitution and wants it changed to blend religion with government, so what do you suppose the group is telling students about the Constitution in these programs?

As the ministry grows, Dean only becomes bolder.  He has called depression, alcoholism and drug addiction myths — which is interesting given the fact that Dean himself is a recovering drug addict.  He has called President Obama a “domestic enemy.” And on a May 15, 2010 broadcast on Minneapolis-St. Paul’s AM 1280 The Patriot, Bradlee Dean said the following:

Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America.  This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian god, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws.  They know homosexuality is an abomination.  If America won’t enforce the laws, god will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that.  That is what you are seeing in America. … They (homosexuals) play the victim when they are, in fact, the predator.  On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?

First, I want to address the most obvious piece of utter nonsense in Dean’s statement – the idea that gay people “molest 117 people before they’re found out.”  This has absolutely no basis in fact.  Although religious conservative groups regularly twist available facts and research in an effort to say otherwise, there is no scientific basis for the claim that gay or bisexual men molest or abuse children (or anyone else) any more than heterosexual men.

A week later, Dean said that arresting jailing people for being gay – I mean, actually putting them in prison for their sexuality – is “very moral.”  During their May 22, 2010 radio broadcast, Dean and co-leader Jake McMillian lauded the government of the African nation of Malawi for arresting a gay couple who’d gotten engaged.  McMillian said, “They are very conservative.  They sentence people for crimes against nature.”  It’s probably safe to assume that this is an example of the kind of thing YCRBYCH is being paid taxpayer’s dollars to teach in public schools.  Just as significant is where this broadcast originated from – more on that in a moment.

But let’s take a look at Dean’s other claim, which is enough to make any thinking person’s hair clench.  He says “Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America” and that makes them “more moral than even the American Christians.”  He says, “If Americans won’t enforce the law” – ostensibly the law of god – “god will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that.  That is what you are seeing in America.”  As best I can tell, the “foreign enemy” to which he refers is Muslim terrorists.  So … Muslims are the enemy sent by god, but … they’re more moral than American Christians?

I’m getting a headache.

Bradlee Dean claims to be a Christian.  Christianity is allegedly — and that’s a very important “allegedly” — based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, a character in the New Testament of the bible who told his followers to treat others the way they want to be treated, to love their enemies, to be humble and selfless, and he told them that simply getting angry at someone was no different than killing that person.  But Dean says that Muslims who call for the execution of homosexuals are more moral than Christians in America.  What can we possibly conclude from this except that, according to Dean, American Christians who want to be moral should be executing gay people?

You might be wondering why this is important.  After all, Dean is probably seen by most as a nutjob, right?  A recovering drug addict drummer with a rock band who says addiction is a myth and gays should be murdered is missing a few cans from his 12-pack of Crazy Cola, right?  You might think I’m just satisfying his need for more attention by writing about him and I should just ignore him, right?  He can’t possibly get far with his little dog and pony show when he’s so obviously a wingnut, right?

Not so fast.

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit ministry that continues to grow and flourish.  Based in Annendale, Minnesota, Bradlee Dean’s Christian ministry includes websites, radio, video, publishing, and appearances in churches, prisons and — yes, even still — public schools.  They are financed, in part, with taxpayer dollars. When they perform in those public schools, they are paid from state funds, which add up to some considerable sums that the government is taking directly out of the pockets of Americans like you and me — $3,000 to $5,000 for a three-hour assembly, according the group’s website. They receive government money in other ways, as well. From the Minnesota Independent:

Some of the members listed as ministers are employed in the ministry’s punk band that brings its Christian message to public schools, possibly in violation of the constitution’s principle of separation of church and state. Of the six ordained members, the documents reveal, five have been given a clergy housing allowance: tax-free payments by the ministry to support rent or mortgage payments. A church operating as a nonprofit must file IRS form 990, which must list any minister housing allowances as part of the employee’s compensation in order for the members to take the allowance as part of their income.

Jake MacAuley, also known as Jake McMillian, sidekick to ministry leader Bradlee Dean on the group’s radio show and a co-minister, was paid the allowance in the amount of $12,976 in 2008, the only year for which tax documents are available. According to another section of the 990 form, at least four other unnamed members of the ministry received a similar allowance totaling $54,532 in 2008.

YCRBYCH has an annual fund-raiser which is aided by some powerful friends in some high places.

One of the group’s biggest, most passionate and valuable supporters is Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.  Bachmann, a Republican, was elected in 2006 and sits on the Financial Services Committee.  She and her husband Marcus own a mental healthcare practice in Stillwater called Bachmann and Associates, Inc., and, according to her bio on her website, in addition to their five children, “the Bachmanns have opened their home to 23 foster children.”

In that entire bio, not one word is mentioned about Bachmann’s religious beliefs — which, frankly, is as it should be.  But personal religious beliefs are such a significant part of Bachmann’s politics that leaving them out of her bio is as deceptive a tactic as those used by Bradlee Dean, because in the last four years, Bachmann has proven herself a religious zealot who uses her office to advance a theocratic Christian agenda.  And that agenda includes getting Bradlee Dean and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, Inc. into public schools where it will have access to your children’s minds and can use its thought reform techniques to influence them.  According to Bachmann, this is a good thing — a very good thing.

Bachmann attends the group’s fundraisers and helps them raise money to do what they do.  At a YCRBYCH fundraiser at a Minneapolis hotel in October of 2006, she gave an impassioned prayer to her god on behalf of Bradlee Dean and his group.  It was a long prayer, but if you want to hear the whole thing, you can listen to it here.  Here are a few highlights:

Lord, I thank you for what you have done at this ministry … how you are going to advance them from 260 schools a year, Lord, to 2,600 schools a year. … Lord, we ask thy faith that you would expand this ministry beyond anything the originators of this ministry could begin to think or imagine.  Lord, the day is at hand!  We are in the last days!  The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will0 become nigh.  Pour a double blessing, Lord, a triple blessing on this ministry.

Remember, this is a United States Representative openly praising, through a prayer, a group that calls the execution of gay people “moral,” that deceptively weasels its way into public schools to engage in activities that violate the Constitution and feed outright lies to students.  Is there a chance that Bachmann is not aware of the group’s activities?  Surely she cannot support the idea of violating the Constitution by teaching Christianity in the public school system.

At that same YCRBYCH fundraiser in 2006, Bachmann complained that public schools “are teaching children that there is separation of church and state, and I am here to tell you that is a myth.  That’s not true.  And they (YCRBYCH) explain to children in the public school system what a myth that is.  And that’s what I love about this ministry. … We want kids to come to the truth and that’s why this ministry is so absolutely vital. We need them in every public school classroom across the state to tell young people, ‘You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.’” (The emphasis is mine.)

Bachmann was unable to attend the group’s 2009 fundraiser, called “Appeal to Heaven,” because she was busy saving the country from healthcare reform, but she did send a videotaped message.  “It a tough job that you do, but someone has to do it,” she said in the prerecorded message.  “I thank god that he has given you the strength and the resolve to fight for our timeless values. … We can’t overlook the outright rejection of god in the public school classroom, and the outright scorn of Christianity in our public square.  Moral relativism is exalted and faith in Christ is derided.”

The program included a sermon by Dean in which he called his followers to war:

We are a Christian nation regardless if you like that or not.  The Bible says we are called as ministers of the flame, the fire.  We are called to war.  We are called to fight the good fight of faith.  In other words, what I’m trying to say is, I’m a trouble maker, okay?  It’s time to say, “We are done complaining, and it’s time to start fighting.”  But you say, “I don’t know what what I’m going to look like with a sword in my hand.”  You are going to look great! … We are not a land of liberals.  We hear this all the time.  Why don’t you just call them for what they are?  Criminals.  Why don’t you just call them for what they are?  Socialists.  They are contrary to our Constitution. … We are not a land of homosexuals.  God said “Adam and Eve” not “Adam and Steve.”

He ended by telling the attendees, “You guys, you got just a little bit of the message we give to youth all across the nation.”

And Bradlee Dean has the full support of Representative Michele Bachmann in all of this, in everything he’s saying and doing, in taking his message “to youth all across the nation,” and in being paid tax dollars to do it — even though it violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

This is not too surprising when you consider the fact that Bachmann and Associates, Inc., the “counseling center” owned by Michele and her husband Dr. Marcus Bachmann, has received nearly $30,000 in state funds since 2007.  That’s troubling in light of how Dr. Bachmann himself describes the center and the work it does during a 2008 broadcast on KKMS radio (MP3):  “We are distinctly a Christian counseling agency here in the Twin Cities.  We have 27 Christian counselors, Christ-centered, very strong in our understanding of who the almighty counselor is, and as we rely on god’s word and the almighty counselor, we have the opportunity to change people’s lives.”

Alex Luchenitser, staff attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told the Minnesota Independent, “Unless they are receiving money purely through vouchers, this is clearly unconstitutional.”  The state of Minnesota does not have a voucher system.  Luchenitser continues:  “It’s wrong for the government to buy clinical services that include submission to god or proselytization.  This appears to be a textbook case of taxpayers funds for religious purposes. … It sounds like employees have to be Christian to work in the clinic. That would be religious discrimination.”

Apparently, Michele Bachmann has no problem with the unconstitutional appropriation of tax dollars, so it’s not surprising that she supports it in the case of YCRBYCH.  But Bachmann is not alone in supporting the group.

That same 2009 “Appeal to Heaven” fundraiser for YCRBYCH was attended by Minnesota State Representative and 2010 Minnesota Republica-endorsed gubenatorial candidate Tom Emmer.  However, Emmer did not mention his attendance at the fundraiser in a list of appearances that week that was emailed to supporters.  To its article about Emmer’s appearance at the YCRBYCH fundraiser, the Minnesota Independent added this update:

Emmer’s campaign told the Minnesota Independent, “Rep. Tom Emmer stopped by the event for a social hour before the dinner and program.  The program is headquartered out of Wright County which is Rep. Emmer’s county and has many supporters in Tom’s legislative district.  It was not mentioned in the campaign update because it was not a campaign event.”

While it’s true that the YCRBYCH fundraiser was not a “campaign event,” that only underscores the fact that Emmer was there because he supports the work of Bradlee Dean and the group!  Emmer was there to throw his support behind a group that calls the president and everyone who supports him, along with all Americans who happen to hold liberal views, and all homosexuals criminals.  And that wasn’t the end of Emmer’s support of YCRBYCH.

From a May 25, 2010 article in the Minnesota Independent:

The Minnesota House campaign of Rep. Tom Emmer donated to the ministry of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide Intl., Inc., according to the press secretary for Emmer’s gubernatorial campaign.  Emmer is one of several Republican leaders involved with the ministry of Bradlee Dean, who leads a hard rock band that brings its message of Jesus Christ into public schools and recently affirmed the practice of Muslim countries executing gays and lesbians.

Emmer’s campaign finance report (PDF) states that Emmer’s campaign donated $250 to YCRBYCH in late 2008.  Emmer’s press secretary, Chris Van Guilder, explains, “Tom’s house campaign committee did donate to the organization, but not Tom personally.”  A good follow-up question, which was not asked, would have been, “What the hell difference does that make?”

Emmer has gotten very chummy with Bradlee Dean and YCRBYCH.  He has been a guest on Dean’s radio show — the same radio show on which Dean stated that the practice of killing gay people was “moral.”  He’s posed for pictures with the leaders of YCRBYCH and spent time at the home of Bradlee Dean.  In fact, it seems Emmer has become a little too cozy with the group.  Remember that $250 donation?  It was $150 over the legal limit.

In May of this year, Emmer’s gubenatorial campaign announced that it had notified the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board of the violation.  But don’t worry, it’s fine, because Emmer’s campaign managed to come up with a clever explanation for the whole thing that makes it okay.  They say it wasn’t a donation but was “used to purchase tickets for volunteers of Tom’s House Campaign to attend a dinner event.”  See?  All better now!

So, is Emmer fully aware of the activities and views of Bradlee Dean and YCRBYCH?  After Emmer stated on the radio that he thought it was the duty of Christians to kill gay people, Emmer’s campaign released this slippery statement:

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International is a ministry based in Annandale, a few miles north of Tom’s home town Delano.  As a representative of the Wright County area, Tom has met with many, perhaps most of the residents of the area, and has doorknocked across the county.  Tom did meet Bradlee Dean while campaigning, and may have doorknocked his house.  Tom has also appeared on AM1280 and KKMS, including on Bradlee Dean’s radio show.  Tom has appeared on many other radio stations and shows as well.  Tom is not a donor to the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministry, and has never appeared as a spokesman at one of their fundraising events.  He did attend a meet-and-greet before a fundraising event held by the ministry to mingle with the hundreds of attendees.  Tom’s position on social issues has been very clear and consistent.  He is a supporter of traditional marriage, and he strongly opposes any kind of violence or unfair discrimination against any group.

He “doorknocked” Dean’s house?  Okay, for the moment, let’s say that Emmer just accidentally showed up at Bradlee Dean’s home.  But he’s also appeared on Dean’s radio show — a show that is very specific in its tone and content, a show that exists primarily as a forum for Dean to spout his hateful bigotry and incitements to violence and murder.  Simply shrugging it off because Emmer “has appeared on many other radio stations and shows” is the equivalent of shouting, “So long, suckers!” and dancing away in tap shoes.  What exactly does “has never appeared as a spokesman at one of their fundraising events” mean?  A spokesman for what?  This is rank evasion, the sleaziest kind of smoke-and-mirrors bullshit.  What he appeared at the fundraiser as is irrelevant — what’s relevant is that he appeared at the fundraiser!  He was there, he attended.  Does Emmer’s campaign assume that everyone who does not work for it is a mental inebriate?  Or does it assume that only of the people in Minnesota whose votes it so desperately wants?

If Emmer “strongly opposes any kind of violence or unfair discrimination against any group,” then why is he so friendly with — and why has he given money to — a man who openly advocates the murder of gay people and calls the sitting president and anyone whose political views don’t agree with his “criminals?”

Has Emmer himself made any statements about YCRBYCH? Oh, yes.  Yes, he has.

“My understanding is that it’s a Christian-based ministry that’s about family, that is about respect for yourself,” he said, as if he’s only vaguely familiar with the group and isn’t quite sure what it stands for.  “I know that they’re a pro-marriage, pro-traditional marriage group.”  That’s the best you can do, Tom?  “These are nice people.”  Ha! “Are we going to agree on everything? No. … I really appreciate their passion, and you know what?  I respect their point of view.  I respect their right to have whatever view.  That’s what makes it a great country.  You don’t have to agree with it.”

The mind boggles.  This is a group that advocates the mass murder of gay people, but Minnesota State Representative and Republican-endorsed candidate for governor Tom Emmer respects their point of view.  What a guy, huh?

But back to Emmer’s visit to Dean’s house.  His campaign claims Emmer “may have doorknocked” Dean’s house.  Dean himself said on his radio show, “Congratulations, Tom Emmer.  By the way, he’s been out to my house and I told him, ‘You’ll to do fine as long as you do what you say you are going to do.’  And we are going to hold his feet to the fire on this.”  Does that sound like a reference to a “doorknock?”  (And does Tom Emmer understand that, given everything else this lunatic has said, he may very well mean that threat literally?)

Am I the only one smelling the foul odor of decaying sea life, here?

But Bachmann and Emmer are just two of the individuals who so strongly support YCRBYCH.  The group has garnered the enthusiastic support of the Republican party in and outside the state of Minnesota.  From the Minnesota Independent:

The ministry has become increasingly cozy with Minnesota Republicans.  During the past few months, (YCRBYCH) has attended two Republican Party of Minnesota events and garnered the support of top Republican officials:  The group participated in Bachmann’s campaign kickoff and fundraiser with Sarah Palin on April 7, where it set up a booth.  (YCRBYCH) also had a booth at the Republican Party of Minnesota State Convention in late April — using space donated by the party, Dean says — where it greeted the party’s endorsed candidate for governor, Rep. Tom Emmer.  Emmer attended the (YCRBYCH) fundraiser in late 2009.  Dean says Minnesota GOP chair Tony Sutton invited the ministry to attend.

During Bradlee Dean’s and Jake McMillian’s radio broadcast (MP3) the day after the convention, McMillian said, “We were at the GOP, the GOP saw what we do and they identified with it.  Even when I was sitting down with Tony Sutton and just going over what we do as a ministry, I said to him, ‘Do you know any other groups that are reaching the demographic we are reaching with the message that we are?’  And, of course, it was blink-blink, ‘No, I don’t, so I want you guys a part of this convention with us.’  And then they invited and they gave us a free table.  Amen.”

As well as heading up the Republican Party of Minnesota, Tony Sutton strongly supports controversial legislation SB1070, a copycat of the Arizona law that has received international criticism for its racial profiling.  From Twin Cities Indymedia:

In a series of protests at the Uptown restaurant, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 26 members and organizers rallied to call attention to a critical contradiction — Baja Sol is a fast food restaurant that sells Mexican food and employs Latino and Latina workers, yet owner Tony Sutton openly supports politically extreme anti-Mexican legislation.  As Local 26 highlights, this blatant hypocrisy means that enthusiasm for one popular facet of Mexican American culture is financing the politics of Mexican-American exclusion and criminalization.  Baja Sol did not respond to a request for comment on these allegations.

Americans were stunned by Arizona’s punitive and highly controversial legislation, SB 1070, which requires law enforcement to institute racial profiling. Gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer publically praised the Minnesota copycat bill calling it “a wonderful first step.”

“A wonderful first step,” Tom?  What’s the next step, executing them the way your “nice” pal Bradlee Dean thinks “moral” people should execute homosexuals?  No wonder you guys get along so well!  This is turning out to be quite a group.  When I’m done writing this, I think I’m going to need to take a long shower and scrub very hard.

So, to recap, Bradlee Dean and YCRBYCH have the full support of Republican Representative Michelle Bachman, Minnesota State Representative and Republican-endorsed candidate for governor Tom Emmer, and the entire Republican Party of Minnesota all the way up to the guy at the top, Tony Sutton.  But there’s another prominent group that lends its support to Dean and his crew:  The Heritage Foundation.

According to The Heritage Foundation’s website, “The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution — a think tank — whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”

Traditional American values like killing queers, maybe? Or traditional American values like arresting and jailing those who have political views that differ from yours?  I only ask because the Heritage Foundation has a relationship with Bradlee Dean and YCRBYCH.  Remember that radio broadcast in which Dean and McMillian praised the government of Malawi for arresting that gay couple?  That broadcast — which you can hear at this link (MP3) — originated from the Heritage Foundation.  Dean and McMillian were at the Heritage Foundation while they were saying that jailing people for their sexuality was “very moral.”

Remember, the Heritage Foundation’s “mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies.”  It was a primary architect of the Reagan Doctrine during the final years of the Cold War.  Since then, the foundation has been very active in shaping both foreign and domestic policy and was behind Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract with America.”  In 2009, it ranked fifth on the list of the most influential think tanks in America in Foreign Policy magazine.  And it hosts Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian as they describe as “very moral” the arrest and imprisonment of people for their sexuality.  Wrap your head around that.  There’s nothing on the Heritage Foundation’s website about imprisoning gay people, but apparently it has no problem with the idea.

An interesting side note about Michele Bachmann.  In October of 2008, she appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said the following about Barack Obama:

If we look at the collection of friends that Barack Obama has had in his life, it calls into question what Barack Obama’s true beliefs and values and thoughts are.  His attitudes, values, and beliefs with Jeremiah Wright on his view of the United States … is negative; Bill Ayers, his negative view of the United States.  We have seen one friend after another call into question his judgment — but also, what it is that Barack Obama really believes?

Interesting reasoning, Michele. Does that apply only to Barack Obama? Only to liberals? Or does it apply to you and your friends? In the same broadcast, she expressed concern about “anti-American” Americans, especially in Congress.  She said:

I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look — I wish they would.  I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?  I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

Obviously, Bachmann has a very specific idea of what is “anti-American” — like liberals (“criminals” according to the man she so actively supports and prays for, Bradlee Dean) and gay people (predatory molesters, according to Dean, whose group she helps fund).  But how American is it to deceptively subvert the Constitution of the United States?  Bachmann does this in two ways — that we know of.  She blatantly lies when she says there is no separation of church and state and then supports and helps fund a group that has to lie to get into public schools and violate the Constitution, which maintains a separation of church and state.  She and her husband own a business that they openly admit is a Christian counseling center — it even has clergy on the staff! — but they collect state funds, which also violates the Constitution.

On the other hand, the only crimes committed by the people Bachmann calls “un-American” are that they disagree with her politically, most likely religiously, and some of them are gay.  Does this add up?  Which part of this equation is truly un-American?

Maybe a “penetrating expose” would be a good idea.  Maybe a hard investigation into this is just what we need.  But who should be investigated?  Why don’t we start with Bradlee Dean?

We’ve seen again and again that conservative Christians who beat the anti-gay drum usually have some underlying problems.  Remember Senator Larry Craig?  He was rigidly anti-gay, worked hard to legislate against gay rights — and he got caught looking for blowjobs in an airport men’s room.  Remember Reverend Ted Haggard?  He oversaw a megachurch in Colorado and was a bigshot Republican, a personal friend of George W. Bush, and he was virulently anti-gay — and then we found out he’d been snorting meth off the back of the male prostitute he was boning and was trying to cover up a gay relationship with someone in his church.  More recently, Dr. George Rekers, one of the country’s leading homophobes, a man who believed homosexuality could be “cured,” practiced horrifying methods of ungaying people, fought the rights of gays to adopt children, and probably did more damage to gay people than any other individual in America, was caught taking a barely legal male prostitute he’d found on Rentboy.com to Europe with him and get naked and nasty for 10 days.  There seems to be a lot of Freudian projection going on among these guys — the act of projecting one’s own failings, traits and hang-ups on others.

So … what is Bradlee Dean up to?  He seems to be awfully hung up on homosexuality — and on the idea that gay people are predators who “molest 117 people before they’re found out.”  Who is he screwing?  And how old are they?  And then there’s his bad habit of lying to suck up taxpayer dollars for activities that violate the Constitution.  On top of all that, he’s sounding like he’s eager to see some blood spilled.  How about investigating him?

Is it just my imagination, or is there enough reason here to investigate Michele Bachmann?  She’s lending strong support to Bradlee’s group and its unconstitutional, hateful and violence-inciting activities.  She and her husband are also engaged in some unconstitutional activity themselves with Bachmann and Associates, Inc., using state funding to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the guise of psychological counseling.  Why doesn’t somebody investigate her? How about investigating Bachmann and Associates, Inc.?

How about investigating Tom Emmer, Tony Sutton, the Republican Party of Minnesota and the Heritage Foundation for having such a cozy relationship with the deceptive, hateful, Constitution-violating, murder-inciting, un-American group You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc.?

Most of this information has come from the hard work of reporter Andy Birkey at the Minnesota Independent.  It seems he’s the only person reporting on this.  Where is the “liberal media” we hear so much about?  You know, the media that hates America and the military and Jesus and motherhood and only covers stories that make the country look bad and only praises depravity and immorality and the “gay agenda?”  It seems to me this story is right up the “liberal media’s” alley!  But there’s no coverage at all.  That might have something to do with the fact that the “liberal media” exists only in the minds of those who tell and believe that lie. If it weren’t a lie, the “liberal media” would be all over this story like lint on velvet.

Obviously, we can’t depend on the media to address this problem.  But somebody needs to.  Bradlee Dean and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc., with the considerable, formidable help of people like Representative Michele Bachmann, Minnesota State Representative Tom Emmer, the Republican Party of Minnesota and its chairman Tony Sutton, and the Heritage Foundation, will only continue to spread this message of hate, targeting young, impressionable minds.  The goal of all of these people is, as I’ve stated before, to abolish the United States Constitution, to implement a Christian theocracy, and then either arrest or kill everyone they don’t like.  Given all the information above, I really don’t think I’m being an alarmist.  These people are obviously determined to do this — they are doing it, and they are using our public schools and taxpayer money to do it.  Worse, they are getting away with it.  It’s not being reported or addressed, and it’s not being given any significant resistance — because so few people know about it!  That leaves it up to us.  You and me.

The first thing you have to do, as Howard Beale said in the 1976 movie Network, is get mad. You’ve gotta get mad as hell.  And if what you’ve read here doesn’t make you mad … well, then maybe there’s no hope.  But if, as I hope, it does anger you, then start talking about it.  Tell your friends.  Send people to this blog by posting and emailing links.  Send this blog to local like-minded radio talk show hosts and urge them to discuss this unseen, unspoken, and pretty scary threat.

Go to Michele Bachmann’s website or her Facebook page, go to Tom Emmer’s site or his Tom Emmer for Governor site or his Facebook page, go to the Minnesota GOP contact page for Tony Sutton’s contact info and email all of these people.  Let them know that you know — and that you don’t like it.  Tell them that unless they unambiguously denounce Bradlee Dean and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc., for it’s murder-condoning hatred, you will assume that their views are directly in line with Dean’s and his group’s.  If you don’t want to write letters, then just send them a link to this blog and a note telling them that you agree with it.  Then write to your own representatives.  Let them know about this and tell them how you feel about it.  Demand that someone look into it, that it be stopped.

These people are serious.  America is a secular nation, no matter how loudly or often the Bradlee Deans and Michele Bachmanns say otherwise. It has a secular government that recognizes and enforces no religion but welcomes people of all religions or no religion.  But these people are not happy with the freedom to believe and worship as they please.  They want to make America a Christian nation in the same way that Iran is a Muslim nation that enforces the laws of the Muslim religion.  They want to tear up the Constitution and replace it with a Christian theocracy that will enforce the laws of the Christian faith — and severely punish those who break them.  They are working hard toward this goal, and they’ve got a lot of money and people and other resources at their disposal.  If you want to stop them, then you’re going to have to speak up!

They will hide behind their bible and their Jesus.  They will deny saying and doing the things they’ve said and done because they lie with astonishing ease — for them, the “truth” is whatever they need it to be at any given time.  And then they will continue to say and do those things.  They are either true believers of their religion or they are using it the way a con artist uses his charms — either way, it doesn’t matter, because their goal remains the same.

Edmund Burke wrote, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”  Bad people are combining and they are adding to their numbers and their war chests.

Don’t fall.

Time now for a little “making fun” because this is so utterly stupid looking. As I have seen from a couple of fundie friends and distant relatives’ Facebook postings, it is become more and more common for some groups to have baptisms in hot tubs and swimming pools (public or private, whatever they can get). After the “saved” person gets “dunked” he and/or she are congratulated as if the person has done something spectacular in life by just being submerged in hot/tepid/cold water (when you and I both know all that nothing magical has happened. All that happens is that the one being baptized gets wet). And as usual, they don’t realize how absolutely ridiculous they look. YouTube has dozens of hot tub and swimming pool baptisms, and they are all equally bizarre.

First we have a little kid being baptized in a hot tub. Most likely he doesn’t even understand what is going on, except that it is something he’s been brainwashed to do by his kooky parents.

And here are people getting baptized in a swimming pool, complete with beach balls floating in the background.

While we are on the topic of baptism, I must confess that I have been baptized not once, but TWICE. Yes, twice. I was sprinkled with Lutheran water when I was a baby, and was dunked in a tank of ice cold water when my family briefly belonged to a Baptist church when I was a teenager (pretty much went through that because of peer pressure from the teen group I belonged to). And after two magical rituals in my life with praying people invoking an invisible gawd to keep me his forever, here I am today, a staunch atheist.

Addition: Baptism in a bathtub…there are several on YouTube. Listen to the murmurings of the borg in the background around 3:21 on this one. Creepy.

The pope and these creepy ghouls at the Vatican are claiming they want to “improve he church’s relationship with non-believers”, but as we all know, what this really is is a sneaky, underhanded attempt to convert us and bring what they perceive as lost sheep back into the fold. Well, I say, no thanks!

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church’s top theologians.

But the ones who can really make points and take the church theologians to task, like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, will not be invited.

The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.

Perhaps that is because the Pope and his delusional entourage feel that they will not be able to stand up to such “militant atheists” or perhaps they feel such “militant atheists” are a lost cause for conversion.

“We, as believers, must have at heart even those people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists,” he said. “When we speak of a New Evangelization, these people are perhaps taken aback. They do not want to see themselves as an object of mission or to give up their freedom of thought and will. Yet the question of God remains present even for them, even if they cannot believe in the concrete nature of his concern for us.”

And they still try, try, try to make it like we really do believe, we just don’t know it. If they were really truly interested in our viewpoints they would understand that the “question of God” is only present for us because god believers always have an underlying evangelistic plot to bring us to their beliefs. Well, Dawkins and Hitchens or not, we will still ask the difficult questions…the first one being why the fuck don’t you get your own house in order before attempting to reach out to anyone?

I have to admit, I rather enjoy Larry David, regardless of whether he’s on one of my all time favorite shows (Curb Your Enthusiasm), or in one of my favorite films, Whatever Works. I’ve a keen eye for what I call religions-slammers, and I recommend this film highly. It takes unabashed slams at religion that people would have been aghast at 20 or 30 years ago.

Up in the top ten of course, is Dogma – one of the choice scenes (with the redoubtable George Carlin as a cardinal – talk about nice touch!):

And of course, what discussion about ridiculous religious beliefs in film would be without the funniest all time scene in Life Of Brian?

And of course, Monty Python And The Holy Grail:

I’ve only shared four of my own favorites here – please feel free to suggest more.

Till the next post, then.

An atheist activist in Illinois is taking action against Friends of Bald Knob Cross which has accepted $20,000 in state money to renovate their execution symbol monument near Alto Pass, Illinois. This may seem like a trivial matter, a little thing, but stopping the little things helps to maintain separation of church and state and prevents the need for bigger, more expensive and more difficult lawsuits down the road.

Atheist threatens to sue over state funds spent on cross

A Chicago area atheist activist isn’t happy that $20,000 in state money is being used to renovate an 11-story cross at southern Illinois’ highest point — and he wants the landmark’s overseers to give the money back or be sued.

Rob Sherman has told the Friends of Bald Knob Cross that a religious symbol getting taxpayer money is inappropriate.
A member of the group’s administrative board told Sherman it is considering his request.

If it decides not to return the funds, Sherman said he’ll file a lawsuit to force them to give up the money.

“I could just run it to court and drop you off a copy of the lawsuit, but litigation is expensive,” Sherman said.

The 47-year-old cross near Alto Pass is undergoing a renovation that’s expected to be completed this summer.

Sherman has sued over religion before, successfully challenging a state law requiring a daily “moment of silence” in Illinois public schools.

– Associated Press

We have to constantly keep an eye on these sneaky god botherers.

We all recall that nonsense back in 2005, when Muslims protested the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Protest? Madness, more like. It illustrated the issues of religion (and one specifically that keeps hollering that it’s a ‘religion of peace’), the dark dank fingers of imaginary friendships with invisible people stirring up and brings out the worst of the reptilian hindbrain.

And now, we have more issues – apparently the accomodationists are out in force, weeping politically correct crocodile tears over the hurt feelings of ignorant millions.

Yesterday a number of cartoonists and activists around the world partook in "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." The campaign encouraged people to submit caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad to Facebook and the Internet at large (which resulted in Pakistan temporarily banning Facebook). It was billed as a free speech statement against recent threats toward cartoonists and entertainers for portraying the religious figure. Some commentators, however, found it tasteless and needlessly offensive toward Muslims, many of whom consider drawing Mohammad to be blasphemous.

Political Cartoonists Are Split, reports Michael Cavna at The Washington Post:

"Shock for shock’s sake." "Choreographed punditry." And "wrong, childish and needlessly provocative." That’s what some critics think of Thursday’s Facebook-ignited campaign titled "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." But those aren’t Islamic extremists speaking. Those are the words of pro-free-speech political cartoonists…

As far as I care, pouting and hurt feelings are for children.

But petition signee Mark Fiore, whose clients include SFGate.com, says his political animation Thursday will incorporate Muhammad. And noted Islamic critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose book "Nomad: From Islam to America" was published this week, says the protest "is a positive campaign" that can "promote self-reflection among Muslims."

And yes, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been the target of death threats. So has prominent critic Salman Rushdie. And no, these aren’t isolated examples – people are genuinely afraid to leave this barbaric anachronism.

The Case For Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Why This Is an Important Campaign  According to Mark Goldblatt at Reason:

Our tip-toeing around Islamic sensibilities is nothing more than plain, old-fashioned cowardice. MSNBC stooge Lawrence O’Donnell, for example, repeatedly slandered Mormonism during the 2008 presidential campaign as a sidebar to his creepily obsessive verbal jihad against then-candidate Mitt Romney. But when asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would insult Muhammad the way he’d insulted Joseph Smith, O’Donnell replied with rare candor: “Oh, well, I’m afraid of what the… that’s where I’m really afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly, but I’m afraid for my life if I do. … I’m not going to say a word about them." That’s the problem in a nutshell. But it’s not just O’Donnell’s problem. It’s our problem. America’s problem. The West’s problem. We lack the moral courage to walk the walk.

Cartoonist Split Proves Benefit  National Review’s Veronique de Rugy reflects on the cartoonist who regrets proposing the idea at all. "Isn’t the existence of the cartoonist’s fear even more reason to come up with ideas like hers?" De Rugy praises "courage and commitment to free speech."

We’re Fighting For Free Speech  Reason’s Matt Welch recalls the Dutch cartoon controversy. "It is unconscionable that–under murderous duress!–those in the free speechin’ business would suddenly cede the authority to depict a really existing historical figure to a loud minority’s religious preferences. … by reprinting one of the cartoons, we would be demonstrating solidarity not with the sentiments contained within it, but with the foundational notion that people ought to be able to publish stuff like that (and worse), period, let alone without fear of having their heads lopped off." He later writes, "in a free society, every day is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

• And of course, the PC apologists blather their usual nonsense:

The Case Against Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

It’s Needlessly Insensitive, counters Wonkette’s Ken Layne: "To equate the bizarre/violent behavior of a handful of fanatics with the cultural-religious traditions and harmless taboos of a billion of the world’s people, well that’s about as dumb as T.P.ing your neighborhood Sunday School because you don’t like Fred Phelps." He accuses proponents of "childishly prodding angry, impoverished people into rage and violence so you can snicker from the safety of your computer."

Well, actually, it’s not a handful of fanatics. Riots occur  over stupid reasons. This happens quite frequently, in fact. Obviously Layne is using selective perception.

• Offending For No Reason Ann Althouse sighs, "I have endless contempt for the threats/warnings against various cartoonists who draw Muhammad. … But depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren’t doing anything (other than protecting their own interests by declining to pressure the extremists who are hurting the reputation of their religion)."
• Jury’s in: Ann’s a moron.By ‘declining to pressure extremists’, that’s also called ‘enabling’ in rehab code.
  • Conservative blogger Erick Erickson adds, "On drawing Mohammed, I’d be offended if ppl had a day to mock my Lord, so why reciprocate? ‘Course I w/n go killing ppl who mocked Jesus."

‘Nuff said.

Why It Unreasonably Offends  Christian Science Monitor’s Husna Haq explains, "I am Muslim and I am American. I love my Prophet Mohammed, and I love my First Amendment right to free speech." However:

To depict him in a bear suit or with a pig snout – as he has been in two recent cartoons – is free speech, yes, but it is intensely offensive. It betrays a willful determination to refuse to see the world through Muslims eyes – to understand how innately the Prophet is loved by his followers and how profoundly flippant disrespect for him wounds us.

Well, killing people in Muhammed’s name (PB&J be upon him) counts as a helluva lot more than some hurt feelings.

Imagine Martin Luther King Jr. portrayed as a monkey and you begin to understand the depth of Muslims’ revulsion to such images.

Since there’s nobody up there, it hardly matters. What’s important, is what’s going on in the here and now.

In Islam, as in Judaism, iconography is prohibited out of fear that creating images of sacred figures could lead to dependence on, and even worship of, icons rather than God. The Prophet lifted his people from the worship of many gods to love for the one God. To depict him is to violate a fundamental tenet of Islam as a joke.

And I say there is no disrespect – because there is no Allah, no Jehovah, no Vishnu, no Krishna. Brahma is a bull and Jehovah a joke. It is time for people to realize that time spent on their knees murmuring is wasted time: there is no one up there listening. That all these ‘holy texts’ are curios only, no longer cautionary tales nor tenets to live by in this world of today.

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the metaphorical timbers shaking in the house that illusion built.

Till the next post, then.

After much consideration about the upcoming “Draw Muhammad Day” tomorrow, I have decided to join others like Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, Vjack from Atheist Revolution, NoGodBlog and many others and post an invitation for those of you who wish to participate.

This action is not merely to rile up and piss off peace-loving Muslims. This is to stand up to those who are attempting to create a global theocracy and do not respect freedom of speech and expression except when it comes to their violent and oftentimes lethal public protests against any criticism of their religion and beliefs.

As for the risk of violent response? Here is a quote from NoGodBlog:

If it makes Muslims uncomfortable, maybe they should consider why they pray to a god that can’t even stomach being drawn, let alone being criticized. Maybe they should consider how barbaric it is that everyone taking part in Draw Muhammad Day is endangering lives, and risking terrorism. Maybe they should consider, just for a moment, that their religion is indeed primitive.

Definitely not a religion of peace if their response is going to be one of death threats and violence.

If we respect their beliefs and shut up like they want everyone in the world to do, then we are giving in. We may as well just shut down our websites, go back in the atheist closet and just let them have their way. And it won’t stop with just curtailing our freedom of speech. They will want to take more, and more of our freedoms away till Sharia Law rules the planet. We would not tolerate this from the Christians or any other religion. But because fundamentalist Islam threatens us with violent acts, many are too afraid to criticize them at all anymore. Like in the video of Vilks’university lecture being shut down in Sweden. If we keep giving in what will happen to our world?

There are many who truly intend to make this whole world a theocracy, and those who wish to make friends with those who would not lift a finger to stop it are merely helping the fundamentalists’ cause. As we saw on South Park, and heard from my warm-and-fuzzy friends, it appears some wish us to roll over and let them win. So we can’t mention Muhammad or show a drawing without fear — does anyone really think it ends there?

Of course it won’t. Like with the fundamentalist Christians, they want it all their way.

“What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American Public.”
– Zalinksy (Dan Aykroyd) in Tommy Boy

“Ha-ha-ha!  You said ‘nuclear.’  It’s ‘nucular,’ dummy.  The ‘s’ is silent.” – Peter Griffin in Family Guy

“The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.”

Those are the words of Thomas Jefferson.  He knew a thing or two about what makes this country work, and he repeated one of those things over and over and over.  He says it again here:

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.”

And again here:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

If Jefferson were alive today, I think he would quickly come to one unavoidable conclusion:  We have a problem.  A big problem.

The word “elite” is thrown around a lot these days.  It is used sneeringly, with disdain.  A significant portion of the American population uses the word “elite” to indicate that a person or group is pompous, arrogant, overeducated, and most importantly, wrong.  It is a derogatory term meant to disparage its target.

Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines “elite”: “The choice part; cream; the best of a class.”

Here is Sarah Palin talking with Brian Williams on NBC News and giving her definition of “elite”:  “Oh, I guess just people who think they’re better than anyone else.”

According to Merriam-Webster, “elite” describes someone who excels, someone who is the best at what they do.  According to Sarah Palin, “elite” describes … what?  People who disagree with her?  People who criticize her?  From the sound of it, Palin wants you to think that the elite – the people who have worked hard to excel in their field – think they’re better than you.  In other words, people who are smarter than you should not be trusted because you have all you need to know as long as you … I don’t know, watch Fox News and read your bible?  Actually, it doesn’t matter what Palin’s definition means – what matters is that it resonates with her target audience, with her base.  Who are they?  Well, they’re people who like the sound of Sarah Palin’s definition of “elite.”  It rings true to them – He’s really good at something?  Really smart?  Then he thinks he’s better than me!

Never mind that her definition has absolutely nothing to do with the word’s actual meaning.  Her definition – which she is far from alone in applying to the word – transforms “elite” into a label for people who are … well, knowledgeable; people who tend to point out inconsistencies of logic; people who are prone to be articulate and well-spoken.  Palin herself is none of those things.  Neither are most of the people who make up her base.  Those who are those things are considered suspect by Palin and her many admirers.  They are not to be trusted.  Their knowledge and abilities are really nothing more than arrogance.  They are rejected, mocked and smeared.  And keep in mind that Sarah Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate in the election of 2008.  Keep in mind that she fills auditoriums when she speaks.  Keep in mind that Palin’s book Going Rogue sold 300,000 copies it’s first day.  None of those things would be true if Sarah Palin were alone in the opinions she holds.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, said, “Well, the jury is still out on evolution, you know.”  He also said, “The bird flu virus could evolve to a form that can be spread easily from human to human.”

In a 2007 debate of Republican presidential candidates, the following question was asked:  “Do you believe in evolution?”  Three candidates – Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Mike Huckabee and Representative Tom Tancredo – said they did not.  Those three men were not elected to their offices in a vacuum.  They have a lot of like-minded supporters.

According to a Gallup Poll, fully one third of all Americans believe that every word of the bible is literally true and accurate.  That means they believe, among other things, that animals may talk, that a bush can burn without being consumed by the flames, that the sun can be stopped in the sky during its rotation of the earth, that eight people repopulated the entire planet after a global flood, that it’s sometimes okay for a man to have sex with and impregnate his own daughters, that a woman can get pregnant and have a child while still remaining a virgin, and that people sometimes come back from the dead and live and function as they did before dying.  This requires them to reject science whenever it contradicts these beliefs.  It also requires them to reject anyone who does not share these beliefs.  Don’t believe me?  Watch this political campaign advertisement.

That campaign ad pointed out that Bradley Byrne does not hold the beliefs listed above, but does accept the scientific theory of evolution and does not think that every word of the bible is literally true and accurate – and it pointed all of that out in an effort to discredit him.

America’s founding fathers repeatedly made clear their conviction that America was a secular nation that neither endorses nor enforces any religion, but allows all religions, or no religion.  The evidence of this is abundant.  There’s George Washington’s letter to Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, in which he wrote, “For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”  There’s the Treaty of Tripoli, endorsed by Washington and ratified by John Adams, which states without ambiguity, “The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion.”  There’s the Constitution of the United States, in which the only time religion of any kind is mentioned is to prohibit it from government.  There is more, too, plenty more.

And then there’s this.

Despite the abundant evidence that they are flat wrong, a hefty segment of the American population shares Sarah Palin’s opinion in the video linked above that America is “a Christian nation” that merely “tolerates” other faiths out of the goodness of its heart and views these other faiths as inferior.  These people will passionately argue that America was founded on Christian principles by Christian people so Christians can live here in a nation of Jesus-loving Christianity, that the United States is the nation that Jesus built.  I was recently in an argument about this with just such a Christian, and when I pointed out that nowhere does the Constitution mention god or Jesus Christ, he said, “Yes it does!  The Constitution is dated this way:  ‘In the Year of Our Lord!’  And our lord is Jesus Christ, the son of god!”

Are you beginning to see why “elite” has become such a dirty word in America?  It has replaced the once popularly maligned word “intellectual” – because, one might presume, it is shorter and easier to spell.  Intellectuals are usually the early targets of any dictatorship as it comes into power (it seems dictators don’t like the “elite” any more than Sarah Palin and her fans).  Why kill them?  Noam Chomsky answers that question:  “Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.”

Those damned pesky elite intellectuals – always asking questions, and worse yet, often answering them!  They’re so troublesome and annoying to corrupt leaders who don’t like it when their actions are criticized or their motives questioned.

In an interview with Cincinnati Magazine, musician, writer, poet, actor, talk show host and punk rock legend Henry Rollins put it well:

How can you argue with someone who applauds when Sarah Palin says we need a real commander-in-chief, not some scholar?  Oh, I see, we don’t like intellectuals.  We don’t want a smart guy as president because he won’t start a war with Iran.  We like the dumb guy better, who couldn’t pronounce any leader’s name and couldn’t find a country on a map; who struggled with the English language like a guy trying to hold on to a live eel.  Yeah, that’s, you know, the coarsening of the intellect.  Who feared smart people?  Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Putin … interesting.  And Palin.  And her flock. “I like Sarah because she’s like me and she’s a good person.”  Well, what about her policies?  “Oh, I don’t know about them, but she’s a good person and that’s why she should be president.”

Of course, here in America, we can’t go around killing intellectuals the way Hitler, Mao and Stalin did … can we?  No, not really.  It wouldn’t look good.  It would be all over the news, Oprah would disapprove, and the media might even make a “reality” TV show about it.

Of course, just because we can’t kill them doesn’t mean we can’t assassinate them in the arena of public opinion.  Listen to right-wing radio talk show host Michael Savage on any day of the week and you will hear him venomously refer to President Obama as, “That university professor!”  As if it’s an epithet on a par with calling him the N-word.  Listen to any of the right-wing radio talkers and you will see how contemptuous they are of well-educated people who’ve devoted their lives to a particular field.  Former Saturday Night Live cast member Dennis Miller, once one of America’s wittiest, most intelligent and acerbic comedians, whose material was peppered with a wide variety of intellectually challenging references that ran the gamut of art, science, pop culture, and history, now hosts a right-wing radio talk show on which he says, multiple times every day, “I’m not much for no fancy book-learnin’.”

But if you think this rejection of intelligence, knowledge and excellence happens only on the right, you’re mistaken.  This past week, movie actor and vocal leftist John Cusack (whom I follow on Twitter) posted this message (I am reproducing it here exactly as he wrote it):

hope we can believe in– ban the ivy league! i kid but not really… lets see what happens when the” best and brightest” dont rule–

Let me repeat that last part again: “Let’s see what happens when the ‘best and brightest’ don’t rule.”  Yes, let’s shove the best and brightest aside and go down the ladder a ways to find our leaders.  Maybe this country would be better off if we put it in the hands of people with no historical frame of reference, people who don’t reach decisions through critical thought and reasoning but rather according to their religious beliefs and ancient religious texts written thousands of years ago by ignorant, superstitious men.  How would that be, huh?  Can you imagine a time when that’s the kind of thinking we use to choose our leaders?

Oh, wait … we’re already there.  Are you scared yet?

In 2008, Susan Jacoby was interviewed by Truthout.org.  Jacoby was a reporter for the Washington Post and the program director of the Center for Inquiry in New York City.  She is now the author of several books, including The Age of American Unreason.  She discussed the common attitude toward knowledge, intelligence and excellence in America and gave the following example of this phenomenon on the left side of the aisle:

At the end of the primaries, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain endorsed a gas tax holiday for Americans this summer. Every economist, both liberal and conservative, said this would do nothing to help matters.  And when Hillary Clinton was asked by the late Tim Russert, “Can you produce one economist to support the gas tax holiday?” she said, “Oh that’s elite thinking.”

Now to say that economists have nothing intelligent to say about whether a gas tax will give people economic relief is like saying that you don’t ask musicians about music; you don’t ask scientists about science.  It’s not just an attack on a political idea; it’s an attack on knowledge itself. … Of course, she doesn’t believe it for a minute. It shows that a lot of politicians think they have to play to ignorance and label anything that goes against received opinion as elitism.

We live in a country in which many brilliant, well-educated people feel they have to play dumb in order to get elected.  They feel the need to pander to the most ignorant among us to get votes, to throw their own knowledge and intelligence out the window and say things they don’t really mean or believe in order to get votes.  And do you know why they do it?  Because it works.

In the same interview, Jacoby gives another example of the frightening way knowledge has been rejected and ignorance embraced:

I’ll give you an example of how stupid this country has become.  I’m one of the village atheists on Faith, a panel sponsored by the Washington Post and Newsweek.  In a recent post I wrote that when I was 7 years old, I was taken by my mom to visit a friend who had been stricken by polio and was in an iron lung. Polio has basically been eradicated, but I grew up when polio was still a real threat to children, before the Salk vaccine.  This childhood friend had been playing and running only three weeks before, and now he was in an iron lung. And I asked my mom, “Why would God let something like that happen?”  And to her credit, instead of giving me some moronic answer, my mother said, “I don’t know.”

After posting this on Faith, I received an e-mail saying, “All childhood memories are unreliable.  We construct narratives to justify what we now think.”

Of course it would be stupid if I’d said I became an atheist at the age of 7.  But I hadn’t said that, only that I remembered this childhood experience as making me begin to question what I’d been taught.  The whole tone of the e-mail was that nobody’s memory about anything could possibly be accurate – no fact could possibly be true.

… One of the points I make in my book is that unreason pervades our culture. It’s not just a matter of right-wing religious fundamentalism. There are all kinds of unreason and suspicion of evidence on both the Right and the Left.

We often hear about the vast promise of technology to educate and enlighten us, to put oceans of information at our very fingertips.  But how can all that information be useful … if we have no frame of reference to apply to it?  Susan Jacoby again:

In my talks to people, I often mention a statistic from the National Constitution Center that almost half of Americans can’t name even one of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. A student stood up at a university in California and said, “That doesn’t matter because you can just look it up on the Internet.” But if you don’t know what the First Amendment is in the first place, you don’t know what question to ask the Web.  Garbage in, garbage out. The Web’s only as good as our ability to ask questions of it. The ability to access information means nothing if you don’t have an educated framework of knowledge to fit it into.

But aren’t we at least smart enough to know that we don’t know a lot?  How could we possibly get ourselves into this situation?  Susan Jacoby says:

A fundamentalist is one who believes in a literal interpretation of sacred books, and a third of Americans believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  That’s about 10 times more than any other developed country in the world.  It’s entirely possible to be a religious believer and to accept science, but not if you’re a literal religious believer.  You can’t believe that the world was literally created in six days, and be open to modern knowledge.

There’s also something else:  We’ve always had more faith in technology than other countries. One of our problems with computers is that we believe in technological solutions to what are essentially non-technological problems.  Not knowing is a non-technological problem.  The idea that the Web is an answer to knowing nothing is wrong, but it’s something that Americans – with our history of believing in technology as the solution to everything – are particularly susceptible to.

Why is it that such a large percentage of the Americans read every word of the bible literally?  Jacoby again.

That’s in my previous book, Freethinkers.  One reason, oddly enough, is our absolute separation of church and state.  In secular Europe – as it’s often called sneeringly by people like Justice Antonin Scalia – religious belief and belief in political systems were united.  So if you opposed the government, you also had to oppose religion.  That wasn’t true in America because we had separation of church and state.  Many forms of religious belief survived in America, because you could believe anything you wanted and still not be opposed to your government.

The freedom of religion in America gives us more freedom, it’s true – but it also gives us more religion, and that freedom provides no balance whatsoever.  People are free to believe whatever idiotic nonsense happens to appeal to them – and they do.  But shouldn’t education provide a balance for this?  Sure, our educational system is a bit problematic these days, but it’s still the best in the world, because America is number one – right?  Jacoby says:

… Americans are unwilling to look at how really bad our educational system is because we’ve all been propagandized with the idea that we’re number one.  That may have been true after World War II, but not anymore.  The idea that we’re number one and special and better than everybody else is a very powerful factor in American life, and it prevents us from examining certain respects in which we’re not number one.

Is Jacoby exaggerating?  Is the educational system really that bad?  After all, America is number one … right?  Well, let’s see.  According to the December 12, 2004 issue of the New York Times, the United States ranks 49th in the world in literacy, 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy and American workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that businesses in the U.S. spend $30 billion a year on remedial training.  According to the January 7, 2005 issue of The Week, 20% of all Americans think the sun orbits the earth, and 17% believe the earth orbits the sun once every day.  On page 78 of Jeremy Rifkin’s book The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, he notes that the International Adult Literacy Survey found “that Americans with less than nine years of education ’score worse than virtually all of the other countries.’”

If you don’t believe any of this and think I’m exaggerated or my information is incorrect, please watch this video, which is a few years old, but still quite relevant.  And be afraid.  Be very afraid.

From the time that I was a boy, I watched my father retreat from the world because the world refused to conform to his opinions and beliefs.  When he was in the sixth grade, his teacher wanted him to give an oral book report in front of the class.  He didn’t want to.  The teacher insisted.  So Dad threw a tantrum, walked away from school halfway through the sixth grade with his signature I’ll show them attitude and never looked back.  He went through life with that same attitude, and the older he got, the angrier he got, because he found that his attitude was not well received.  When I was a child, he used to come home from work angry every day – everyone else was stupid, everyone was out to get him, everyone else was to blame for all of his problems.  After having back surgery, he applied for disability and got it.  He wasn’t disabled – he did plenty of hard work around the house – but he no longer had to face a world of people who knew more than he, who thought more clearly than he, who refused to tell him he was right about everything when he was right about virtually nothing, and who refused to tolerate his tantrums when this fact became clear.  He continued to retreat from the world until he almost never left the house, even to go to church (he was quite religious and was fond of wildly misquoting the bible he never read).  The excuse he invented was, “I don’t like being around crowds.  It’s my nerves.”  My mother played along.  The little house in which they lived became his entire world, and in that world, he knew everything, he was always right, and everyone else was crazy and ignorant and full of crap on every conceivable topic.  And if you didn’t believe him, just ask Mom.  She would nod and smile and say, “That’s what Dad has always said.”  As if always saying it makes it right.

If you had a discussion with him about anything and you happened to disagree with him, you didn’t simply hold a differing opinion – you were saying that he was wrong.  Opinions weren’t just opinions to him because in any conversation, someone had to be right and someone had to be wrong – and he had to be right.  As a result, he walked away from every conversation by angrily snarling his favorite words:  “I know what I know!”

Dad used to pronounce the word “realty” as “reality.”  This drove me crazy.  Finally, I pointed out to him that he was mispronouncing the word.  “Realty refers to the sale of real estate,” I said.  “Reality is a different word and has an entirely different meaning.”

“But I’ve always pronounced it ‘reality,’” he said.  My family was big on the idea that repeating something a lot made it true.

“I know you have, but it’s always been wrong.”

“Well, I prefer to say it my way,” he said.

“Then no one will know what you’re talking about, Dad.”

“That’s their problem.”

I wanted to say, No, Dad, that’s your problem, but I said nothing, and if you’d known my dad, you would know why.

Life in America is starting to bear a terrifying resemblance to life with my parents.  I’m 47 years old, have been married to my wife for 20 years, and yet it seems that, with increasing frequency, when I engage others in conversation on topical subjects, I feel like a little boy again trying to have a conversation with my father.  This is due, I think, to a combination of phenomena that have created a perfect storm of willful ignorance in America.

Fully one third of the population believes in the infallible accuracy of a book that claims it’s okay to abuse or even kill your children, that seas part so people can walk across them, that women are unclean during their menstrual cycle and everything they touch during that time must be burned, that virgins have babies and people rise from the dead.  These people in turn reject any scientific information – sometimes even evidence that is right in front of them – that contradicts this book.  And let’s face it, folks – if you believe all that not only without a speck of evidence to support it but in the face of hard, cold proof to the contrary, then there is no limit on what you will believe.

We live in an era that is bloated with information.  Once upon a time, there were only three, four, maybe five television channels available to most people.  Now there are hundreds.  News channels now have 24 hours to fill every day, which has made everything “news” – the latest celebutard drug overdose, political sex scandals, missing puppies and updates on American Idol contestants are now given the attention and significance once reserved for national policy decisions, wars and natural disasters.  “Reality” TV has invaded every area of television – the major networks, MTV, cooking channels, it’s everywhere – presenting as “reality” the very worst elements of humanity.  Selfish, arrogant, angry, deceptive, promiscuous, ignorant, small-minded people get their own TV shows today and are held up as celebrities, and people tune in to follow their exploits.  They’re soon popping up on shows other than their own – talk shows, panel shows, “news” shows, and in magazines where they pose for glossy, glamorous photo shoots.  They become the topic of watercooler coversations in workplaces around the country.  These people – the stars of “reality” TV shows who have, as a result, become TV stars, celebrities, and the subject of stories that pass for “news” these days – have rapidly become cultural touchstones for us.

On top of that, our culture has become dominated by things like Twitter, Facebook and cell phone texting, all of which have positive aspects.  But a significant portion of our population has come to believe that it’s very important that everyone know exactly what we’re doing at every moment and that we share every little thought that pops into our heads.  It has given us a sense of self-importance we did not have before, the feeling that the minutiae of our lives is somehow special and of great interest to others.  Hey, if those unpleasant, obnoxious, proudly stupid people on The Jersey Shore can have their own TV show, then I can be a celebrity, too, right?  We have become celebrities in our own minds, filled with a false sense of our own importance.

Add to all of the above another factor, one that perhaps does the most damage.  Just as wealthy, pampered celebrities tend to surround themselves with “yes men” who tell those celebrities only what they want to hear, it is now possible for us to structure our own personal lives to confirm only those things we believe about ourselves and our world.  You’re a Christian conservative who believes that America is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles to be ruled by Christians?  Then watch Fox News and CBN and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham and go online and read Newsmax and WorldNetDaily (both of which have a long history of outright lies).  You believe that the scientific theory of evolution is a lie and the world was created in six days by a silent, invisible god?  Well, there are plenty of well-funded organizations that agree with you and are working hard to spread the word that your belief has scientific support and is being unfairly rejected by the American educational system in favor of its wicked, godless teachings.  In no time at all, you will be absolutely convinced that you are right about everything!  You don’t even have to listen to anything that disagrees with you!  After all, you have TV shows and reporters and news websites and celebrities and shiny organizations to back up everything you believe.  Suddenly, all those who disagree with you become the “elite” – people who think they’re better than you, people who think they know more than you.  What more do you need to know other than the fact that you’re right!

Now, ignorance and stupidity are not only allowed, they are actively encouraged and nurtured!

During the eight years that George W. Bush was president, I nearly pulled my hair out every time I heard him speak.  Whenever he opened his mouth and words came out, he butchered the language, said appallingly ignorant things, and made it very clear that he just wasn’t thinking clearly, as if all the wrong synapses were firing at all the wrong times (“Is our children learning?” … “You need to put food on your family.” … “The jury is still out on evolution.”) Whenever I openly complained about this, it seemed there was always someone who spoke up and said some variation of the following:  “Leave him alone!  At least he’s not one of those people who says everything exactly right all the time, like he’s better than everybody else, like knows more than everybody else!  He talks like a normal person!  He talks like me!”

Every time they said that, what I heard them saying inside my head was, I like him because he’s dumb like me! I heard my father saying, I know what I know! I heard him saying, That’s their problem.

No.  It’s our problem.  It’s the entire country’s problem.  And it’s a problem that is rapidly getting worse, metastasizing like a cancer.  Thomas Jefferson was right – the functional operation of this country as it was conceived by the founders is absolutely dependent on an informed electorate, on reasoning and informed intelligence.  All of that is disintegrating right before our very eyes.

Don’t wait for the educational system to fix this.  Don’t wait for the government to correct it.  It will only get worse unless we start doing something about it ourselves, individually, one at a time.  Educate yourself and stay informed.  Think – and think critically.  Turn off the television and radio and stop listening to the many talking heads who want to do your thinking for you.  Go to the library or a book store, do some reading.  Seek out information and opinions that challenge you and will keep you from saying, I know what I know.  Examine each issue thoughtfully, using reason as your guide, not devotion to a religious belief or allegiance to a political party or the popular opinions of our time.  Keep in mind that the majority opinion is seldom the right one – that the majority once wanted black people and women to remain second class citizens without voices or rights.  Arm yourself with the facts, then speak up when you hear those facts being trampled or twisted.  Don’t remain silent in the face of willful ignorance and disinformation.  Point it out, correct it, and then denounce it.  If we don’t do that with frequency and conviction, we will find ourselves traveling backward in time with terrifying speed, and we will land in a place ruled by ignorance, superstition and anger.  We’re halfway there right now.  In that place, there will be no freedom, no individuality, no thinking.  There will only be the constant repetition of the words, I know what I know … even if what is known is nothing at all.